An 18-year-old Sacramento woman, who said she needed the money from selling drugs to support her family, was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for selling 100 Ecstasy tablets for $500 to a confidential informant.
District Judge Dave Gamble told Kayla Villarreal she would be eligible for parole after a year.
"When you get out, you're going to be the ripe old age of 19. You will have a huge life ahead of you. You can either live this way with chains around your belly or the way the rest of us in this room live," Gamble said.
She pleaded guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance, stemming from her Dec. 5, 2008, arrest at a Stateline casino.
At her arraignment, Villarreal told Gamble she agreed to the deal because she needed money to help support her grandmother and two younger siblings.
"She's scared to death of going to prison," said her lawyer, Tod Young. "I wish she'd been that scared before she came up from Sacramento with a bag full of Ecstasy."
"I am so ashamed," Villarreal said. "I want to change my life."
"I don't know if anybody's ever told you this, but there's a whole life out there that has nothing to do with drugs and cops," Gamble said. "That life is waiting for you to live within the circle of law.
"You stepped over the line big time at the age of 18. I have no choice but to send you to prison. "
Life is good inside that circle," he said.
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